Carter Oliver Months 1-5

Well hello there. Talk about being way behind on posting on this blog. I guess that's what happens when you have two kids. Life got way more busy than ever before. So let's try to catch up on the first five months of Carter's life. Carter started off from the beginning being a good eater and a pretty good sleeper. However things changed when he was about two months old and he started having symptoms that appeared to be like reflux. After that, we got a cranky (read: colicky) baby who often times wouldn't eat well and really didn't sleep well. That left me completely exhausted and drained me until about a month ago. We tried a couple of different medicines and what seems to help the most has been just time. He seems to be finally outgrowing it. Hooray! 

Now we have a growing and happy baby and I couldn't be happier. At three months old he was about 14 pounds. At his four-month appointment he was just shy of 15 pounds ( 4 months: 14.8 lbs, 25.25 in, 15.75 head). And then at five months he was over 15 pounds and a couple days ago (5 1/2 mo) he was 16 lbs. 6 oz.  So he's really been growing a lot recently and I think that's because he's finally feeling better. 

Anyways, this baby loves to smile and laugh. You can talk to him or tickle him and he just cracks up. He adores his big sister Audrey and she loves him so much. She is always kissing him and hugging him and playing with him... she just loves him. 

Things he loves: his sister, his mommy, his daddy, his papi, his play mat, grabbing toys, going on walks in his stroller and just being outside in general, being talk to and tickled.

Milestones: grabbing toys, rolling from his stomach to his back (4.5 months), sitting in his Bumbo, cooing and "talking", grabbing his feet, recognizing voices, turning his head when he hears his name.

Schedule: Carter is still breast-fed so he gets a combination of bottles with pumped milk and nursing. He does well with the schedule he eats at 7,10, 1, 4 and 630. He eats and plays and then after being awake for about an hour and a half he gets swaddled and goes for a nap. He goes to bed around 630. He now is only waking up a few times for his papi and one time to eat. This is a huge improvement from how it's   been the past 3-4 months. We've tried rice cereal twice but he's not quite ready so will reattempt that in a couple weeks.

Life with two children is busy.. Way busier than I thought! We are all adjusting and it's been a process but I feel like we are in a good place now!

Okay time for some cute pictures!

1 month old

2 months old 

3 months old

4 months old 

5 months old 

Introducing Carter Oliver Roberts

A belated post to welcome our new son, Carter Oliver.  He was born on Thursday, May 1 coming 3 days past his due date of April 28.  I guess he just really wanted to be a May baby.  He was 7 lbs 6 oz and 19 3/4 inches and arrived at 12:19 pm.  He took to breastfeeding right away and has been doing great since then.  He has lighter and less hair than Audrey did and blonde eyebrows and eyelashes.  I wonder if he will be dark haired initially like his sister, who stayed that way until her 1st birthday when she turned blonde.  We shall see.  We were soooo lucky to have all of his grandparents there to meet him on the day of his birth as well as his PROUD big sister.  Audrey adores him.  She loves to kiss him and touch his soft hair.  Carter seems to be ok with it!  Paul was able to stay home for 3 weeks which was great and we have had tons of visitors in the past 3+ weeks.  At his first pediatrician appointment, he weighed 7 lbs 3 oz (his weight had gone down to 6lbs 14oz when we were discharged from the hospital).  At his 2 week appointment, he was up to 8 lbs 9 oz, 20 1/2 inches long, and 14 inch head circumference.  He has outgrown several newborn outfits and is in a lot of 3 month onesies.  He is doing well with a flexible schedule of eating every 2 hours during the day.  At night, he goes anywhere from 4 to 8 hour stretches.  Last night was his best yet sleeping from 8 pm to 4 am.  I woke up before he did and went to check on him because I was shocked he had not woke up yet.  I'm well aware of an infant's ever changing sleep/eat pattern, but I'll take the long stretches when I can get them.  And I will GLADLY nurse every 2 hours during the day when that means longer stretches at night.  We swaddle him at night, as we did Audrey... we are big believers in swaddling! I'm anxious to get into a routine with balancing 2 children.  It's a different ball game with 2 and Audrey is going through an adjustment for sure.  3 year olds can be trying at times. 

Here's some pictures of the new man in my life!

Audrey is 3 years old!

A belated Happy THIRD Birthday to our dear Audrey!  She celebrated her birthday with a theme she picked all on her own.  Her first choice was Ariel, but we did that for her 2nd birthday.  Her next choice was Minnie, but we did that for her first birthday.  On the plus side, it sounds like she's consistent with her interests!  Her third choice was My Little Pony.  Very fitting considering she's a BIG fan right now.  She randomly came across the show on Netflix.  Side note:  on "mommy's IPad" AKA my Kindle Fire, I go to Netflix and she can navigate from there.  She is good about knowing what shows are "children shows" and which are "mommy/daddy shows" or even "big children shows" which are just ones that are a little too old for her.  So from her navigating ie Netflix giving her suggestions, she has come across many many shows with her favorites being My Little Pony, Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake and occasionally Daniel Tiger.  Does this girl belong in the 80's or what? Pretty sure those were my same interests during that decade.  So anyways, she celebrated her 3rd birthday with our wonderful family and friends at our house.   Soon after the party, she went to her 3 year old well visit.  On this day, she learned that sometimes you go to the doctor for check ups when you are not sick.  The day I told her we were going to the doctor for this appointment, she looked at me very seriously and said, "mommy, am I sick?"  The doctor gushed about how good and smart she is.  She weighed 25.2 lbs and was 33.5 inches.  No need to even talk about percentiles... she probably isn't on the charts anymore but who cares!  In 3 months since she turned 3, she has increased her weight to about 27 lbs.

Right after her birthday, like literally days after, she had a BIG transition.  We finally moved her out of the crib.  Paul did a fabulous job of refinishing her full sized bed and dresser for her big girl room.  We prepped her for this change for a long time.  We talked about how she is going to be a big sister and we will give her crib to the new baby.  The other big change was that we told her big girls don't use papis which means there would be no papi in the big girl bed.  GASP! I was very nervous.  Paul gets all the credit for combining these 2 transitions.  It was seriously the best idea.  For her, it just made sense and it became a thing of fact.  Big girls sleep in big girl beds and don't use papis.  She did fantastic.  She was sad to be without her papi for a couple of sleeps and that was it.  I wanted to cave because I felt we took away her best soother and she had no replacement, but Paul kept me from doing so.  She seriously impressed me.

Speaking of transitions and of her impressing me, Audrey has been potty trained since November.  I was again nervous and stressed about this process.  We bit the bullet and went straight to underwear one weeekend and that's all it took.  She had 2 accidents, which she really didn't like and got upset about and then bam, that Monday, we went to daycare armed with LOTS of underwear and changes of clothes.  She has had no more than 5 accidents since.  She uses the insert on the big potty from the beginning.  She amazed me.  For sleep, we used pull ups until about a month ago, however, she was ALWAYS dry.  We just still put her in pull ups... who knows why.  So a few months ago, we stopped the pull ups at naptime and then about a month ago, stopped at night too.  No problems at all.

In other news, we still have a very picky eater.  It's a constant challenge and we try to incorporate new foods using every tactic I can research online but with limited success.  Audrey does really well at school.  She's transitioning to the 3 year old room.  She likes her teachers and her friends and we haven't had any major issues.  She's a bundle of fun most of the time.  I can understand probably 98% of what she says and everyone else probably understands 90%.  I don't have to translate as much anymore :)  She loves to play at the park and can do everything from swinging herself, climbing, sliding.  She wants us to play with her but is much more proactive overall.   We have a few bird nests outside and she loves to go out with Daddy and check on her chicks.  She is so caring and so maternal.  On occasion, she acts like a total 3 year old and gives us sass, sass and more sass.  She is becoming quite a negotiator and everyday, we are giving her time limits to something.  I say 3 minutes, she says 5 minutes.  I say I'll read one book before bed and she says, no 3.  Any parent of a 3 year old knows how it is. 

Audrey's newest transition this year is the one that occurred 2 weeks ago tomorrow.  She became a BIG SISTER.  She has talked about the arrival of baby Carter for quite sometime.  When he first came, she told everyone SHHHH the baby is sleeping!  Don't touch!  When she saw me in the hospital bed, she was very concerned about me and the fact that I couldn't walk.  The next day when she came back to the hospital, the first thing she did was ask me "mommy how is you feeling? can you walk now?"  She is always checking on me and asking how I'm feeling.  So sweet.   She adores her baby brother.  She loves to kiss him and hold him.  She is concerned when he cries and nearly cries herself.  She plays with him on the play mat.  I knew she would be good because she is so maternal, but I had no idea how great she would be.  She again impressed me with her awesomeness! 

It's beyond hard to believe that Audrey is on her way to being 4.  After having Carter, she seems so big and grown up.  Where did my baby go?  We are soaking up every minute of our beautiful daughter and loving watching her grow. 

Sara

Audrey is 2 years old!!

How exactly is my baby girl 2 YEARS OLD?? She is so much fun... a little chatterbox and I love it. Here's what's going on with the big girl.

Stats: We just had her 2 year old well visit on the 8th. She weighed in at 22 lbs (5th percentile), 32 inches (10th). Her head is 18 inches I think and in the 25th percentile. She didn't have any shots this time and so the appointment was relatively uneventful, except for the fact that she has an ear infection in the left ear. 5 days of antibiotics and it cleared up.

The day before this appointment, she began the first of what would be 5 days of diarrhea. All day, every day. She was a trooper though, despite not wanting to eat and clearly not feeling good.

The next day, the 9th, was Audrey's birthday party! It was an Ariel theme because that was her first Disney princess doll (it goes in the bath with her) and she fell in love. A few of her friends came and she had a great time with everyone. She played, blew out her 2 candles by herself, and ate a whole piece of cake. She even sat through all the present opening too!

Like I said, Audrey is such a chatterbox! She knows evryones names (mommy, daddy, Stoney, Missy Jane, Brutus, Nana, Papa, Lala (Leila), Ryan, Andrew, Eli, Connor, Baby Gemma (Emma), Oma, DenDen, Mimi, Emmy (Emily), and Hannah. She knows her friends names too... Feerah (safeerah), Evin (evelyn), Brennan are her faves. She is a little bossy (where on earth did she get that from? ha) and loves to say "___ a mear (come here)!" She loves to say "hold you." when she wants to be picked up and carried. She tilts her head to one side and nods it when she's telling me something serious like "brutus night night or seeping(sleeping)" or "stoney outside poo poo." It's so sweet. She has soooo many words, I could never begin to even count them.

She still goes to daycare 4 days a week and moved up to the 2 year old room a few weeks ago. It seems to be a harder transition for her than I expected but she's hanging in there. The teachers did tell me recently that she doesn't talk to them which blew my mind. Hopefully, she warms up a little more once she gets her bearings. She's home with me 3 days and Paul as well, depending on which schedule he's on for part of that time. She naps 2.5-3 hours and still sleeps 12 hours at night. Her pickiness is still present but she is eating better. I feel like I'm constantly learning (and criticizing myself) for what works best for her. She is still drinking whole milk and I have no intention of changing her anytime soon. We have a list of things that Audrey will eat such as grilled cheese, quesadillas, pepperoni, salami, bacon, cheese, cereals, fruits. It's a constant work in progress.

Audrey and I do parent/tot gymnastics classes every Thursday after work/daycare which she loves. We started around September and it's such a great time! I would love if she continued with gymnastics!

Audrey is such a girl. She loves her Disney princesses and her babydolls. She still loves doing puzzles and reading books. Her favorite show is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

2 things that are in our future. 1. getting rid of the papis. They stay in the crib with the exception being long car rides. She still loves them so much! 2. Potty training. We have a potty. She talks about it and has even sat on it, but we haven't started training yet. Her parents need to get mentally prepared for both of these things.

Audrey brings so much joy and excitement. I look forward to picking her up from school every single day. She's not perfect and she sure does know what time out is, but she's so sweet and silly! She loves being goofy and silly.. she cracks me up. She gets more fun every day.

Last 2 things. 1. We are going to Disney World on Thursday!! CANNOT WAIT! 2. When we say GO!, she says HEELS! THAT'S MY GIRL!!!

Video!